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LOVE COMMENTS!!!

Weekends Are For......

Daddy teaching his daughters how to shave.
(See the pink bathroom? Someone please call Extreme Home Makeover!!!)

Trying on cool stuff mommy gets in the mail from her new job.
(Want one of these yourself? I'll be having a giveaway from this shop very soon and you can find out where to get one)

Twin time as they call it (they told me to bring a camera because mommy needed a picture of twin time).

Oh, and we can't forget cartoon time with daddy!!!

Bunk Beds & More

We have been in the process of starting to organize our house a little. The kids mostly play upstairs now so we decided to move all their toys upstairs and move our office downstairs(I'm very excited about this).

We are working on giving each of them their own bedroom but Jaxson won't sleep alone so we put the bunk beds together. For the first time since he has come home I found something he couldn't do with just having one arm. I honestly didn't even think about it. He tried to climb the bunk bed and he couldn't get up. I thought surely he could figure it out but he couldn't.

I had to think quick and I decided to put a belt on the bed and then it only took him about 2 seconds to get up.
Jaxson loves it and now he can get down by him himself too.

This is our crazy Amaya. Amaya got to dress up for school everyday this last week and this was crazy day.

OK, I can't leave our fur babies out of the pictures. This is a dog toy they got in the mail (I will be giving one away soon on my giveaway blog) and they were very excited.

Have you checked out all the amazing giveaways I have going on? The links are at the top of this page and all of you Holly fans need to get signed up for the beaded silverware giveaway.

Have a great weekend!

Our Little HOBO

Isn't she cute?

Mindy Has A Family!

Do you remember when I posted about the little girl that needed a miracle? She got her miracle!

Click here if you want to read her families blog.

God does really have a heart for the orphan.

Just Curious.......

Are we the only ones with a child that could go through a gallon jug of Shout a week? I mean really, 2 of our kids hardly ever need their clothes sprayed (and that would be the younger 2).

Amaya has to be the messiest child on the face of the earth. Oh I love her dearly but honestly I have to go through every piece of clothing she has and half of them are so bad they have to be soaked over night and the other half are covered in Shout. Sometimes it's so bad I have to soak and shout.

I sure do love my messsy child though!

My Frugal Friend Started a Blog

I have this friend that I met many years ago back when we were single and wanting men like crazy. I will admit that we met at line dancing class and it was soooo much fun. I think we actually laughed more than we caught onto the steps.

Anyway Wendy is one of those people that can work miracles with coupons and buy like $200 worth of groceries for about $10 (OK maybe not that good but close to it). Wendy also doesn't use her dryer in the summer. She has not convinced me to stop using my dryer yet. Wendy also cans and well you get the picture.

Anyway Wendy has just started a blog to share some of her frugal living secrets so I thought some of you might want to check it out. Wendy is also a mom of 3 young boys and 2 of them being twins.

Go check out her blog and tell her Sarah sent you.

Paige & Kai Kai

Paige has been a pretty sick little girl so she has been sleeping on the couch. Kai Kai just make herself all nice and what cozy next to her.

Aren't they cute?

No More Complaining

Yesterday I was complaining because I am tired of being in the house and am ready for things to get back to normal.

Well, I got out of the house yesterday but only to take Paige to the ER once again with asthma stuff. She is a very sick little girl and I almost ended up back at the hospital just a couple of hours after being released from the hospital. Please pray that she starts feeling better really soon.

We are getting back to normal (kinda) today as the kids actually are going back to school!!! They are on a delay but they are going back. They have not been to school in a week.

Jaxson spent the night with grandma, grandpa and his cousin Addison last night so I'm sure he's having fun. Addison is only a week younger than Jaxson.

I am so excited to be hosting my first giveaway for an Etsy shop!!! I got it posted this morning so if you want to check it out you can click on the link at the top of the page under Current giveaways. You do not need have to be a blogger to enter the giveaway.

OK, gotta go check on Paige.

Homeschooling.......

NO thank you Holly! As a homeschooled child myself I know this is not something I could do. I'm good at loving on them, feeding them, cleaning up after them, dressing them, loving them being a mom but I am in no way a teacher.

Teachers have a gift and well I did not get that gift.

I am so, so excited! I have been working on my other blog today. I have contacted some Etsy shops and I have 2 shops so far that are going to let me host giveaways for them. Have I told you how much I love Etsy? You didn't know that did you?

So what are your kids doing on these snow days?

I Love My Kids.....But.....

ARE WE EVER GOING TO HAVE SCHOOL AGAIN???



I mean really, the way it is going they will maybe be done by July and there is more snow in the forecast. Not to mention we are all starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

Goodness I've Been Busy

You know I thought life was crazy when we first brought Jaxson home having a 2, 3 & 4 year old but it was nothing compared to how crazy life is now.

The economy hit us very hard and we have been trying and trying to find ways to make up for the income we have lost and God is providing but it has made our lives a tad bit crazy.

If you were following last spring you know that one way of doing this was to start going to foreclosure auctions and buying and selling huge lots of things. The only place to store those things is in our garage so we haven't been doing that through the winter but we have been keeping busy with other things.

Last fall my dear hubby, who happens to be a mechanical genius and is an auto technician, started flipping cars. Have you seen the HGTV show called Flip That House? That's what Chris has started doing with cars. Chris buys cars that are non-running, the owner can't afford to fix it and he fixes them, makes sure there safe and sells them. It is soooo much fun to be on the search for cars to flip but it usually means Saturdays are either spent on the hunt for the best car or he's working on the cars. His latest buy was a Cadillac in a box as he calls it. Someone tried to fix it and it didn't go well. Most GM techs are scared to touch a Cadillac motor let alone someone that thinks they can do it at home. This car in a box is what Chris loves. He loves to be challenged and it gives him a chance to use the gift God gave him.

I have been trying to figure out little ways I can help while still being a stay-at-home mom because that is soooo very important to us. This is one reason I have started my other blog to try to figure out how to make a little (not a lot) extra to help out. If nothing else we are winning some really cool things that we would never have bought for ourselves. This truly has become a full time job.

I also have my 2 beautiful Cavaliers that hopefully will be having some puppies this year to sell. If my figures are right and everything goes well, we should have puppies ready for new homes around Christmas. I can't wait for this because it will be so much fun to see the looks on faces when they see the face of the little Cavalier pups. Have you ever seen a Cavalier pup? I don't think you could find a pup much cuter.

On top of all those things God asked Rett and I to get the orphan ministry back in gear so I have been re-searching for that.

So needless to say with 2 four year olds, a six year old and all the other things going on life is just crazy. You would see that if you looked at my house and laundry right now.

On top of that it is time to start going to foreclosure auctions again. They are fun though to see if you can find any hidden treasures.

So if you can't find me here for a few days at a time you can probably find me here.

Guess What?

I'm having my very first giveaway at my other blog, click here and go get entered.

God's Heart

Have You Seen These?

Well you know by now that I am Etsy crazy. One thing I have really been trying to do is to by handmade when I have gifts to buy to help out people that have their own business and not the huge corporations.

Anyway I just won one of these pendants in a giveaway and they are so cool! I received the Love one and I got it in the mail today.

These would make a very affordable gift and they are fun. They are made out of scrabble pieces and there are tons to choose from.

I think I may be buying some of these for gifts in the future. If you want to go look at them you can visit Yum Yum Pendants by clicking here. Have fun looking!

Paigie's Special Day & Mom's B-day

Today was such a fun day. Paige has been so good about her being the only one not getting to go to school yet but it really bothered her that she wasn't going to get a Valentine party. I decided that I was going to give her her own Valentine's party and we would invite grandma to go with us. It happened to be grandma's birthday today so it worked out perfect. Grandpa also called and asked if he could join the party.

We went to a party store first so I could get her something for the party and we found this hat. Oh, she LOVES the hat and she is just too cute in it.

She chose Applebee's for lunch and grandma had a whole bag of surprises waiting for little Miss Paigie Pooh.

Paige ate all her lunch and I let her get dessert. I ordered the cookie sundae meaning the one off the children's menu and this is what the waitress brought.

Paige didn't mind a bit that they brought the wrong one.

It was also fun to celebrate mom's birthday with her today. I'm so proud of my mom! Mom was diagnosed with Parkinson's 6 months ago. This was one of mom's worst fears I think of things that could happen. Instead of becoming depressed about it my mom is losing weight (which is not easy in my family), exercising, doing things she loves to do and spoiling kids. I honestly don't think I've seen her this happy in a very long time. Did I say she is spoiling grandkids like crazy now?

After lunch we went and surprised mom with a shopping trip to go buy a chandelier for her dining room. Mom couldn't believe she was getting a new chandelier. I told her that those are the positives of having a lot of kids that can pitch in together for things like that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

Giveaways

Just wanted to let you know I posted some really good giveaways on my other blog today if you want to check them out. I won't always warn you on this blog so you should really follow but there is one really cool giveaway on there today so I thought I'd let ya know.


CLICK HERE!

Sometimes It's A Blessing....

for it to be illegal to drive anywhere.

Chris was so excited there was enough snow to build a cave.

Did you notice Amaya missing from the pictures? Amaya is at grandma and grandpa's getting spoiled.

Noodles

My mom emailed me this picture this morning and I just had to share with you. Something a lot of you probably don't know is that my mom has a noodle business. Mom started this business a very long time ago to be able to send us kids to a Christian school. What started out at a farmers market is now a business that sells at stores like W*lmart and M*ijer.

Almost every Sunday mom makes lunch for all her kids and grandkids that can come. Mom had made her chicken noodles this day and this is what we caught Jaxson doing as we were trying to leave. Can you tell he like his grandma's noodles?

Something else you might not know is that I had a gift basket business for awhile when we were trying to get pregnant. It was sooooo much fun but I am not a salesman and it was a messy job so when I got pregnant I stopped the business. Sometimes though mom and I still put noodle gift baskets together for special things or for people that order them.

People from all over the country order mom's noodles because they are just the best noodles you can find as you can tell in the picture.

My brother-in-law set up a website for her here if you want to check it out. If you ever want her to ship some or make you a gift basket she can do that too. We are planning on putting one together soon to give away on my giveaway blog.

Wish I had a roast because this would be a perfect day for beef and noodles. Can't even get out of our driveway though to go get one.

Just 4 Hours After Snow Started

We still have a lot coming! Isn't it just beautiful though?

My Kids Are AWESOME!

We have a HUGE winter storm coming and due to the flu hitting us hard this week I had not been able to get to the grocery.

I got Amaya off to school this morning and the snow hadn't started yet so I told Jaxson and Paige to hurry and get dresses we were going to go to the grocery. We live in a very small town so W*lmart is 10 miles away.

They were super quick getting ready so we were off. If you have ever been shopping with a 4 year old you know it's not the fastest thing in the world. Somehow at 4 you need to explore everything and of course go to the bathroom because it's different than the bathroom at home. So shopping with two 4 year olds takes even longer. We pulled up to the store and the snow started coming. The kids know I am terrified of driving in snow and I looked at them and said "this has to be a very fast shopping trip."

These awesome 4 year olds of mine let me get a whole weeks worth of shopping done in 15 minutes with NO bathroom breaks. Paige asked me if they could get chocolate milk since they were so fast and you better believe this momma said "yes babies, you can have chocolate milk."

It started snowing and freezing rain as soon as we got home. So we are in now for the weekend and they are drinking chocolate milk.

Did You Know?

Did you know that there is this totally, totally, awesome blog that you can find really cool giveaways at?

You can find giveaways for things like giant fortune cookies, Wilton cake pans and really cool Etsy things.

I know you can win things by checking out these giveaways because I have won several and my friend Rett has one a couple.

What are you waiting for? Click here and you should consider becoming a follower while your there.

PS Please, please, please become a follower so I can start doing reviews myself. OK, I know it sounds like I'm begging and that is exactly what I'm doing.

Have You Been Trying To Start An Orphan Ministry?

If God has given you a heart for orphans you know how Biblical it is to have an orphan ministry in your church. The problem is that a lot of times churches and other Christians don't understand it yet or haven't researched God's heart for the orphan.

If your in a large church a lot of times you feel like there is just so much red tape and how could you ever break through all that.

I know how frustrating it can be. We spent 3 years trying to pull ours together and it is still very much a work in progress. I will say that a lot of this time we got tired of fighting (Satan just loves that doesn't he?) and just got busy doing other things.

We found a way though to push our ministry through by starting a blog. We found out that because we were a ministry we could post the link in the bulletin. This is how we have found our voice for now. I also just had another adoptive mom email me last night saying that after we did it she ask her church if she could (she has also been fighting forever) start a blog and they ask why she hadn't done is sooner.

Please, please if you have felt like your in an uphill battle to get your ministry going (OK, more like the biggest mountain ever) ask your church if you can start a blog and post it in your bulletin. Don't forget that even though it's seems like a huge battle you are fighting for God and for the over 147 million orphans out there.

It's time we take a stand and churches get involved and learn about God's heart for the orphan.

Go make that call!

PS I want to thank our church very much for being supportive of our blog!!!

Can You Tell?

Can you tell that they don't even care
that it is between 0 and 30 degrees
here throughout the day?

If you can't have summer outside then you have it inside.

Even our bathtub has become a swimming pool complete with bathing suites.

How I wish I could be a kid and not realize that it is COLD.

PS I don't let them sleep in these even though they want to.